


Hell and Back

by Tokyo_the_Glaive



Series: Tumblr Shorts [10]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Possibly Pre-Slash, Psychological Torture, Q is M's Son, Q is a Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-05-25
Packaged: 2018-06-10 16:23:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6964186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tokyo_the_Glaive/pseuds/Tokyo_the_Glaive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bond's first mission as an agent goes sour.  When he returns to MI6, a peculiar boy with a visitor's badge comes to visit him before his psych exam.</p><p>(Or, the one where Q, who isn't yet Q, starts to piece Bond back together after terrible trauma.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hell and Back

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a tumblr prompt~ spectergirl wanted to see 00q bondlock where Q saves Bond emotionally when he's little. I wasn't sure if you wanted Bond or Q to be little, so I stuck with canon age difference. I hope you enjoy!

_April 13, 1999_

 

The two hours of sleep Bond caught on the plane back to London were the first he’d had in two days, and they weren’t nearly enough.He awoke in his seat, bleary and disoriented, pulse thrumming with the impulse to flee, when the plane landed and one of the pilots woke him.In the past few days, his instincts had grown sloppy; he nearly strangled the pilot before he recognized his surroundings.The pilot had nearly turned violet in the face by the time he snapped to and released her, and she fell to her knees, spluttering and gasping for air that couldn’t come fast enough.She had to be carried off of the plane by the other pilot, a shorter woman who glared at Bond as she left.He was incredibly lucky that he hadn’t been on a commercial flight, though Six would have never retrieved him that way—not with the way the operation had gone.

When Bond stood to exit the plane, his stomach turned.He hesitated, wondering if he would be sick, but pressed on anyway.The last real meal he’d eaten had been three days ago, so other than the little he’d been force-fed, there was nothing that could feasibly come back up.Still, his stomach turned again, a combination of hunger, the smell of preserved and plastic-warped air, and the stench of dry sweat.Bile rose in the back of Bond’s throat, and he swallowed to keep it down as he forced himself to walk across the tarmac to the waiting car.

“Welcome home, Mr. Bond,” the driver said, not meeting his eye. Bond climbed into the back seat without a word.He hated it—that he couldn’t so much as speak, that he could hardly move without constantly willing himself to go forward.

He was better than this—he knew that.He _had_ to be better.His shaking hands and the montage playing over and over and _over_ in his head were hardly like him. He didn’t care, damn it.He didn’t _care_ , he didn’t—

The driver was saying something.Bond heard him as if through water.They were going back to headquarters—mandatory debrief, Bond supposed.Probable psych evaluation.

Bond jumped as the driver gunned the engine to leave the tarmac and head into the city. _Definite_ psych evaluation.They’d ground him.Bond would go mad.

“I’m sorry,” the driver said, once they were on the road.He swerved in and out of the light traffic, and Bond felt his stomach rising again.

“For what,” Bond said, voice flat.

“I’m sorry,” the driver said again.“What happened over there, it was—”

Bond cut him off.“You didn’t do it,” he said.

The driver didn’t respond.What could he say?“I’m sorry” could hardly help when Bond had been forced to watch the torture and murder of his mentor, Gillead.

 _Partner_ , Bond thought.He’d been made a full agent not a week before they were sent off.

“Early birthday present, eh?” Gillead had joked.He had been proud of Bond, if unsurprised.Bond was preternaturally good when it came to the spy business.

Now, Gillead was gone.Bond could still hear him screaming, listing street addresses and numbers to try to keep his sanity without spilling secrets.

It had been worse when the screaming stopped.

Bond himself had sustained hardly any injuries, thought the cuts around his wrists and ankles from the handcuffs they’d kept him in promised to remain for days.The memory in his mind would last substantially longer.

“If you tell us,” the ringleader, a rabble-rouser by the name of Fuller who had been making trouble in Brasília, told Bond when they began, “we’ll let him down.No need for the knives anymore, eh?Tell us who sent you.”

Bond had kept his mouth shut, and Fuller’s men had carved Gillead like an animal.They used power tools and whips and fists until he was little more than a carcass suspended by meathooks over a concrete floor.His corpse didn’t resemble anything human by the time the extraction team arrived.

 _Late_ , Bond had thought, furious, even as they got him out of that damned chair and away from Gillead’s soon-to-be-dead body. _Too late_.

Two operatives from the double-0 section would be taking over—Fuller had escaped, somehow.Bond hoped Fuller would be killed, that one of the double-0 agents would put a bullet in his forehead.(He wished he could be the one to pull the trigger.)He hated himself for not doing it, for not doing _something_.He’d sat, and watched, powerless.It was a sensation he hoped never to experience again.

“We’re here.”

The words cut through Bond’s thoughts, and he sat bold upright.When had he hunched forward, his ears nearly between his knees?He couldn’t remember.The car was parked across the street from headquarters, and the driver stared at Bond from his seat, worry and pity written across his face.How long had they been parked?

Bond unbuckled his seatbelt and pulled himself out of the car.

“Do you need help getting inside?” the driver asked, making no move to follow.

Bond slammed the door and began the long walk to the front doors alone.

* * *

Bond found himself whisked through security and taken deep into the building, down in the basement levels where the interrogation and debriefing rooms were.  When he had signed on, Bond had thought it funny that the same rooms were used for such different purposes.  He wasn’t laughing now.

He felt twitchy and entirely out of sorts.The fluorescent lights seemed too bright, though he knew rationally that they were the same as they had always been.He could hear everyone breathing, moving, talking—all too loud, all too close.He wanted to drink until he forgot why the sound of water in a tub set his skin on edge, why the laughter that came down the corridor had him flinching, anticipating violence that wasn’t coming.

Bond was brought to one of the interrogation rooms on the third basement.He sat across from an older operative who introduced himself as Hamm.A thin metal table sat between them.At Bond’s left, a one-way glass obstructed his view into the observation chamber.He wondered who was on the other side.

At Hamm’s instruction, Bond told him everything he could remember, from the moment he and Gillead had arrived on Brazilian soil through to the ( _late_ ) arrival of the extraction team.Bond relayed the facts, and only the facts.Hamm had beady eyes that Bond didn’t trust.

“Thank you, Mr. Bond,” Hamm said at the end, sitting back.“We appreciate the effort it’s taken to secure this information.”

Bond had the distinct urge to reach across the table and grab Hamm by the lapels.He wanted to wrap a hand around that thin, papery throat and squeeze. _Appreciate_?Of course they did.

Bond smiled benignly and said nothing at all.

“One of the doctors from Medical will be arriving shortly to conduct a preliminary psychological exam,” Hamm said carefully.His eyes had widened as if Bond’s murderous thoughts had been written across his face.Perhaps they had been.“You’ve been through a horrific ordeal, and our organization will help in any way imaginable.”

“Thank you,” Bond said, voice carefully neutral.

Hamm fled the room as if scalded.

As soon as the single door to the interrogation room closed, Bond focused his attention in on the one-way glass.He considered the likelihood that he’d been locked in—low, though security was probably stationed outside in the event that he lost his mind in the next few seconds and needed to be contained.

Bond looked away from the glass to stare straight ahead at the blank surface of the concrete walls.He breathed in and out and willed himself not to panic.He wasn’t restrained, he was on home soil, he was—

Someone knocked on the door.Bond’s eyes snapped over to it as it opened, someone just barely sliding in before it closed again.

“You’re not the doctor.”

“No.”

Bond stared at the new arrival.This was a test, surely, but an ill-conceived one at best and a downright dangerous one at worst.Who put a civilian in a room with an agent of questionable mental stability just to see what happened?

The man—boy, really; there was no way he was over twenty—stood awkwardly in front of the door.He was all gangly, bony limbs, with a mop of black curly hair that fell into his eyes behind his thick, dark-rimmed glasses.His jeans were black and altogether too tight, and his button-down needed to be pressed, though it likely needed the cleaners even more.At least his shoes were respectable.

“May I?” the boy asked, gesturing at the seat across from Bond.He had a posh, melodic voice.Bond nodded when it became clear that the boy wasn’t going to come forward unless given explicit permission.He moved away from the door slowly, taking measured strides.He had long legs, Bond saw.They were almost of a height.

Bond straightened and made aggressive eye contact when the boy sat before him.

“Hello,” the boy said.

“Hello,” Bond said.

The boy smiled slightly, seeking—approval?“I saw that they’d left you in here alone,” he said.“I thought you might want some company.”

Bond arched an eyebrow.“Who are you?” Bond asked.

The boy shook his head.“Doesn’t matter.”

Bond placed his hands on top of the table in an unspoken threat.The boy didn’t back down, though his throat bobbed as he swallowed.

“I am allowed to be down here, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he said.“Look.”

He placed a visitor’s badge on the table and Bond snatched it up.It had the boy’s picture on it, but no name, only a series of numbers and department access codes.

“This says MI5,” Bond said.“You’re in the wrong building.”

The boy extended his hand for the badge.Gingerly, Bond returned it, watching as the boy slowly pocketed the thing.

“There’s a meeting going on upstairs,” the boy said.“The branches are putting their heads together.I was told to wait here.”

“Not in this interrogation room,” Bond said.

“No,” the boy said.That smile came back, slightly sheepish, “not here.Like I said, I thought you might be lonely.I would have brought tea, but I didn’t think I had the time.”

Bond stared at the boy.“Five’s recruiting children, now.”

The smile turned to a frown.“I turn eighteen in two weeks, I’ll have you know, and I’m just a visitor,” he said.

“Then it’s your father who’s upstairs, who got you in here?”

“Mother, actually,” the boy said, “though my brother’s upstairs, too.”

“Brother,” Bond said.“Older than you, I hope.”

The boy shrugged.“By a bit,” he said.“I’m the youngest.”

Youngest, not younger, Bond noted.“There’s more than two of you, then?” he asked.

“I have two brothers, both older,” the boy confirmed.

“Are all of you angling toward this line of work?”

The boy shrugged.“My— The oldest of my brothers is.He’s interested in the domestic aspect.Control freak, you know.”Bond found himself smiling, watching this boy talk with his hands and his overly expressive face.“The other is… Less inclined.He’s not much for rules.”

Bond laughed shortly.Man after his own heart, then.

“And you?” Bond asked.

The boy looked openly at Bond.“Not your kind of work, no,” he said.“I like computers.”

“Coding and the like?”

“Exactly.It’s— I’m good at it.I want to use it to help people.”

Bond pursed his lips and said, “Plenty of spots for someone like you, I suppose.”

“Do you think?”

Bond didn’t answer.

“Why did you come down here?” Bond asked.

“I told you.I didn’t want you to be alone.It’s terrible, putting someone in a room like this when they’re not an enemy.”

“How did you know I was here?” Bond asked.

The boy didn’t break eye contact.“I know things.”Bond waited for elaboration, but none came.“I’m sorry,” he said.

“For what?” Bond asked.

“That this has happened to you,” the boy said.“I’m sorry you’ve seen what you have.I’m sorry they’re treating you so poorly.I’m sorry I can’t get you out of here.”

Bond looked at the door.He could get out, if he really wanted to.He had a hostage with family in one or both of the services.It would be easy.

Bond moved his hands off of the table and down to his lap.

“You know who I am,” Bond said.It wasn’t a question.

“Yes,” the boy said, shifting in his seat for the first time since they had begun.“I do.Your file was back there,” he said, nodding once at the glass.He looked at the table as he said, “Today is your birthday.”

Bond froze.“You shouldn’t be in here,” he said.

The boy smiled.“No one should have to do this,” he said.“If I can just build good enough systems, this wouldn’t happen—”

The door burst open.M stood at the front, face pale and livid.Behind her stood a balding young man in a neatly pressed suit.Behind both of them them stood myriad security guards and someone Bond recognized from Medical—one of the doctors, he supposed, here for the evaluation.

“Out,” M demanded, staring at the boy.He sighed and stood.

“It was good to meet you, Mr. Bond,” he said.

“Likewise,” Bond said.He looked between the three figures—M, the balding fellow, and the boy.The resemblance wasn’t the strongest he’d ever seen, and yet—

“ _Out_ ,” M demanded.The boy walked to the door and didn’t look back.The balding young man grabbed him by the arm and whispered something.Before the doctor slipped inside and the door was shut, Bond heard the boy say, “Oh, shut up, Mycroft.”

Bond grinned. _Cheeky little thing_ , he thought of the boy.He’d broken in—for what? So that Bond wouldn’t have to be alone?

“Ah, hello, Mr. Bond,” the doctor said, coming to sit where the boy had been.“My name’s Cyrus Longwood.I’m a doctor of medicine, and I practice emergency and psychiatric care.”

“The boy that was in here earlier,” Bond said, watching Longwood’s face carefully, “who is he?”

“I don’t know,” Longwood said. _Lie,_ Bond thought, and a poorly concealed one.“But I daresay he won’t be coming back.These children think they can run amok without consequence.It’s a disgrace.”

Bond said nothing, leaning back as Longwood organized his files to get into the evaluation.Bond took stock of himself—he felt _looser,_ at ease.Not lost or disjointed they way he had earlier, but calm and less tense.It was a difficult feeling to pinpoint, but when he caught it he knew: he was starting to feel human again.He’d been under duress for days, tortured and forced to watch torture in kind.His self had shrunk down to nothing.

One day, he was going to find that boy and buy him a drink.

“Are you ready, Mr. Bond?”

“Of course, Doctor,” Bond said, smiling shamelessly.


End file.
